In 2015 I was president of GUPride, Obergefell v. Hodges was not decided and SAC was debating recognizing Love Saxa. Love Saxa had the same empirically harmful ideas and hosted events hostile to LGBT people. My opposition to their recognition at the time had nothing to do with the then-unrecognized right of gay marriage, nor does it now.

The controversy is framed as campus activists asking a Catholic university to defund a group for holding beliefs consistent with church teaching. This has rightly, if disproportionately, stoked right wing fears of “political correctness” run amok and made victimized darlings out of bigots. While I believe bigotry is inextricably tied to opposition to gay marriage, like it once was to interracial marriage, that belief has not become a consensus merely two years after Obergefell v. Hodges.

This does not let Love Saxa off the hook. Love Saxa may not be hate group because it opposes same sex marriage, but it is a hate group because its mission explicitly denies and denigrates the humanity of LGBT persons, married or otherwise. It does not merely advocate against the right of same sex marriage. It claims to promote the “proper” understanding of sex and gender to preserve sexual “integrity.” It then defines these terms in ways such that no transgender person is “proper” and no gay person has “integrity.”

Love Saxa’s brief history is worse. In 2015 they refused to participate in a dialogue with members of Pride to discuss “authenticity” on the grounds that “natural law” prevented them from recognizing LGBT identities. They sandwich anti-LGBT speakers in between events about other deviancies like porn “addiction” and sexual assault. They have no interest in winning converts in our community as they’ve demonstrated their goals are mutually exclusive with our existence.

This is not about marriage. Do not let Love Saxa claim martyrdom at the hands of a people they’d have erased.

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The irony is that the writer of this missive displays hatred towards those who hold a different set of beliefs. He considers those beliefs harmful to himself and those who believe as he does. Never does he consider for a moment that his beliefs are deemed harmful and denigrates the humanity of Love Saxa members simply because he believes he is “right”. Because he is “right”, Love Saxa should not officially exist. Mr. Lloyd, we are pushing back for our rights to believe as we please and act according to those beliefs. We are through being bullied by your fascist and bigoted tactics. Your demagoguery is no longer effective. This country was founded and sustained on the ideals embodied in the first amendment to the constitution. Neither you nor anyone else will be allowed to take those rights away. Too many people have died to preserve those rights and they will have not died in vain. The silent majority has awakened and will set things right by ensuring that everyone’s rights are preserved, not just yours.

Lloyd states that attacks on Love Saxa have nothing to do with marriage. This claim is absolutely false. In its editorial on October 20, The Hoya singles out the disagreement over gay marriage as the primary reason they want the group defunded. In an article published here that same day, anti-Love Saxa activists Ouseph and Gasman state that their call for defunding is based on the group’s beliefs about marriage. Lloyd is trying to rewrite history, even if he has to go back only a few weeks.

In addition, he writes, “Do not let Love Saxa claim martyrdom at the hands of a people they’d have erased.” He seems to think that there’s a risk of a Holocaust on campus if Love Saxa is allowed to maintain its status. Who’s the one claiming martyrdom?

The issue is simple: Love Saxa holds views entirely consistent with the Catholic Church. You are at a Catholic institution. Case closed. If you are so offended by Catholic values, why are you attending a Catholic school?

Also, you do realize that transgender people suffer from a mental illness called gender dysphoria, right? It is a perfectly legitimate position to recognize the illness but not wish to acquiesce to the left’s view that transgenderism is “proper.” It is not proper. It is not normal. It is an illness.

Love Saxa’s position on homosexuality, as you describe it, is the Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality. So maybe instead of taking a stand against a group of young students, take a stand against the Curch? And against Georgetown for its association with the Church. Otherwise you are just picking on the little guy.

Secondly, someone doesn’t have to agree that what you indentify as, or what you do in your bedroom, is “normal” or “proper” to agree that you are human. This is a disgusting tendency of the Left, using words like “dehumanizing” and “erasing” to turn everyone who doesn’t approve of you into a “hater”.

Is the Catholic Church dehumanizing and erasing you? If it is, take it up with them, and with Georgetown.

To all those who say Love Saxa is consistent with the Church’s teachings—

1) Evolution is also at odds with Church teaching, but the biology department most definitely teaches that. Why draw the line at Love Saxa?

2) Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism are definitely at odds with Church teaching by definition of being other religions, but the University hires an imam, rabbi, and priest nonetheless. Why draw the line at Love Saxa.

3) I’m sorry opposition to gay people is such a big part of your Catholicism. Saying that gay people can never have integrity no matter how honest, or kind, or good people they are (as Love Saxa does) is wrong, and it definitely isn’t Christlike. I’ll pray for you and also for the demise of this abominable, mean-spirited club.

Administration- protecting your gay students isn’t the easy thing to do, but it is most certainly the right one. History will hold you accountable if you don’t.

1. Evolution is not at odds with Church teaching; that is a ridiculous and completely baseless assertion. I’m curious where in the Catechism, in sacred tradition or in Scripture you find any opposition to natural selection.

2. As said in Dominus Iseus, “outside of [the Catholic church’s] structure, many elements can be found of sanctification and truth.” In other words, there are much true and holy things taught in other religious traditions, and it is good and proper for Georgetown to encourage its students who are not Catholic to come to understand these things within the context of their own religion, while also making Catholic teaching available.

3. I certainly don’t have any “opposition to gay people,” but rather, as said in the Catechism, I believe that gay individuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.” Conflating Church teaching about the sinful nature of homosexual behavior does not in any way imply a condemnation of homosexual people, which is morally repugnant.

Everyone has their cross to bear, those particular sins to which they are inclined by their nature, and no one’s nature is in and of itself wrong. All human beings are created in the image of the Lord, and all human beings have inherent dignity and worth because of that fact. But we as people are called to resist sin and temptation, especially the temptation of those sins to which we individually are most inclined. One person may be prone to pride, and he must work especially hard to avoid committing this kind of sin. Another may be prone to wrath, or to greed, and she must focus on avoiding those sins. And some individuals are prone to certain kinds of sexual sin, and it is their glory and their cross to bear to resist this temptation and live godly lives, no less than any other individuals. Oftentimes, particularly in recent history, homosexuality has been treated as something especially evil or perverse by the Church, and this has resulted in horrific prejudice and discrimination against gay people. This is abominable, and I repeat that homosexual acts (and, more broadly, sexual sin in general) is just one example of the kinds of temptations we are called to resist.

The Church’s teaching on sexuality is a “big part” of not just ‘my’ Catholicism but of true Catholicism, but no more so than any other teaching. We must condemn homosexual conduct, condemn greed, condemn environmental pollution, condemn exploitation, condemn racism, condemn the death penalty, condemn all the wicked ways of the world the separate us from the light.

Gay people, as I have alluded to above, can of course have integrity, just as any other human can have. Why on Earth would being gay negate being kind, honest, or virtuous? None of us are perfect, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” and yet salvation is available to all people. But salvation is dependent upon repentance, faith, and the earnest striving towards righteousness. No one can be perfect, and few people are even good, but what matters is our striving. We may fall short a thousand times, and yet if we continue getting up and asking for forgiveness, we are still granted salvation. This is the central issue, and it is why sexuality has become a lightning-rod for controversy within the Church. It is not merely this one issue that is at stake, it is the entire idea of repentance and contrition. Loving our neighbor does not mean approving of all the neighbor does, not even if our neighbor believes that what he does is good and right. We must hold fast to the truth and proclaim it kindly and without any malice. To shy away from the truth because it is seen as “hateful” is in fact the very nature of hateful; it is allowing other human beings to continue in sin when we could help them. That is morally and spiritually repugnant.

Gtown student, you are not telling the truth. Evolution is NOT at odds with Catholic teaching. Pope Pius XII stated in Humani Generis that there is no conflict between the Theory of Evolution and the Catholic faith. John Paul II and Francis have both spoken out to reaffirm this view. University policies must not be based on falsehoods like the ones you’re promoting.

1. You are incorrect, and betraying a deep misunderstanding of Catholicism. Evolution is explicitly consistent with the teachings of the church, which describes Genesis as metaphorical and the methods of science as God’s tools for creation.

2.This is a poor analogy. Georgetown allows other religions to exist on campus, and provides financial assistance for them to do so, because it does not wish to create a theological bubble. That said, it is entirely reasonable for them to also provide that same support to clubs which very clearly toe the line of Catholicism.

3. Catholicism does not reject the rights of the LGBTQIA community to exist. Rather, it calls them to a life of abstinence, because sex is inextrocsbly linked to procreation.

You don’t need to agree with it, but you ought to try to understand it, and ifou didn’t want it on your campus you should have attended a different University.

Gtown student: Wikipedia must have been too far away, since you failed to grasp even a broad-stroke understanding of Catholicism.

The question here is whether Love Saxa is bigoted for expressing a sincere religious belief shared by hundreds of millions worldwide or whether GUPride is bigoted for trying to exterminate opposing beliefs. If you think it’s the former, then you need to think again

But in all seriousness, thanks for acknowledging evolution. It is in direct violation of The Bible, so if that part of the Bible is wrong, why can’t the literally two or so verses condemning gay men (not gay women!) also be wrong?

If you admit that parts of the Bible are wrong, it follows that others can be. Thanks for leaving the door open to change.

How exactly is evolution in any kind of contradiction with the Bible, in which God says “Let the Earth bring forth…” plants and animals. This kind of language is allegorically speaking of evolution guided and ultimately caused by God.

No, throughout most of the Church’s existence Genesis was not taken as an allegory but as fact. For most of its history, the Church believed the earth was flat, 6000 years old, and created in 7 days. It was only in the face of a modernizing world that the Church decided to rationalize Genesis as an allegory.

It’s funny how you rationalize the things that are inconvenient to you (divorce, genesis, literally the entire book of Leviticus) and then cherrypick the parts of the Bible you can use to make yourself morally righteous. The Bible spends 2-3 verses on gay men. Why are you so obsessed with those in comparison to, say, the many more verses related to divorce, or getting a tattoo, or wearing ripped pants?